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About a year ago, I took a look at how Africa accesses Facebook on mobile as part of a project for a course run by the ODMA (the Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy). I sourced all of the data from Facebook’s ad planning tool and broke the data down into:

Total Facebook users by country

Total mobile Facebook users by country

Total mobile users accessing Facebook on Feature phones, on Android, on iOS, on BlackBerry and on Windows Phone.

Facebook recently announced that there are over 100 million people in Africa using Facebook, half of all Africans connected to the internet. And since it’s been a year since my original post, I decided it was time to relook how Africa accesses Facebook on mobile in 2014.
Last year, I mainly looked at the five countries with the largest number of Facebook users. This year, I looked at how many people were using each mobile platform to access Facebook across the continent. Here are the results:

40,817, 600 African access Facebook on Android devices

This accounts for roughly 45% of mobile Facebook users in Africa

The number of Africans using Android devices to access Facebook has increased 244% in the past year

35,533,600 Africans access Facebook on Feature Phones

This accounts for roughly 39% of mobile Facebook users in Africa

The number of Africans using Android devices to access Facebook has increased by 19%

6,209,240 Africans access Facebook on iOS devices

This accounts for roughly 7% of mobile Facebook users in Africa

The number of Africans using iOS devices to access Facebook has increased by 58%

5,778,880 Africans access Facebook on BlackBerry devices

This accounts for roughly 6% of mobile Facebook users in Africa

The number of Africans using Blackberry devices to access Facebook has increased by 3%

1,649,440 Africans access Facebook on Windows Phone devices

This accounts for roughly 2% of mobile Facebook users in Africa

The number of Africans using Windows Phone devices to access Facebook has increased by 146%

Some General Observations from the Data:

Compared to last year, more Africans are using Android devices (although this may include tablets) to access Facebook than Feature Phones. Bear in mind that this doesn’t mean that there are more Android devices than feature phones in Africa.

All the use of all mobile platforms to access Facebook grew over the past year

Android enjoyed triple digit growth in the majority of African countries in the study – this growth may increase in coming years as Google launches Android One in Africa

The number of Facebook users in Africa grew by 26% in the past year with 92% of users accessing the service on mobile devices

A Note on the Data:

All of the data used in this post was sourced directly from Facebook’s Advertising Tool. To the best of my knowledge, all of the above data is as accurate as possible at the time of originally publishing this post. If there is an error in the data, it may be my fault (please let me know if you find something wrong). If I was not at fault, then Facebook was drunk. You can find a full PDF of the data here. If you would like it in an editable spreadsheet, please let me know and I will gladly supply it.

I have tried my best to not be misleading with the data in this post. You are free to reuse any of the figures in this article but please do so in context – this is important to make both you and myself seem less stupid.

So Social. Much Viral. Wow!

It seems like every other day that someone announces another Snapchat clone. Facebook had Poke, then Slingshot. Both failed. Path redesigned their chat app to be more ephemeral in nature. Instagram launched Instagram Direct for private sharing and is even testing a new private photo sharing app called Bolt.

Why is everyone trying to be Snapchat and why is Snapchat still ahead of the game. I’d like to argue that Snapchat has a secret sauce. Here’s why:

1. Snaps are Super Expressive
You can share photos and videos with lots of apps, so what makes Snapchat so special? The answer is that a snap is not just a photo. By allowing users to add text, apply filters and draw on their photos and videos, Snapchat offers their users a way to be both highly creative and super expressive. Now when you combine this with the ephemeral nature of Snapchat, you create a way for users to share moments, big or small, in a way that is more natural than most other social networks.

Now if you compare Snapchat to some of it’s “competitors”, you’ll see that they haven’t perfected this perfect balance of expressiveness and ephemerality. Poke was just a pure clone of Snapchat with none of the coolness factor. Slingshot arguably comes close but requires an awkward sling to unlock mechanic. Bolt emphasises speed over creativity. Most other ephemeral apps are using the feature as a gimmick. And Instagram Direct just doesn’t allow users to be expressive enough. You can only do so much with Instagram’s selection of filters which is why people have started editing their photos in 3rd party apps like VSCO CAM.

Also, Instagram is just not a private social network. Like Twitter, you want as many people to see, like and comment on your photos while getting as many followers as possible. Instagram is one of the fasted growing and most exciting social networks at the moment. Why they want to be Snapchat instead of Instagram is something I just don’t get.

2. Snapchat has made smarter product decisions
You don’t often hear Snapchat announce new features but when they do, they are often well thought out, make the product better and receive overwhelmingly positive feedback. Some examples of such features include Snapchat Stories, Our Stories and Snapchat Chat. Snapchat Chat is particularly great and does an excellent job at keeping users in the app for longer.

If we look at (or pick on) Instagram, they’ve made a number of product announcements this year. Adding advanced photo editing features and redesigning the app to be more usable in emerging markets were great moves. Launching Instagram Direct, using Facebook Places instead of Foursquare for location data and even launching Bolt seem more misguided.

3. Snapchat is finding cool ways to monetise
Every social network faces the challenge of increasing the number of its users while making as much money as possible. This often involves making the service attractive to brands and by selling users to advertisers. Services have to get this just right because users don’t want to be spammed.

Snapchat is reportedly looking at alternative ways to monetise so that they don’t alienate their audience of “cool kids who use Snapchat”. Snapchat is doing their best to make the service more brand friendly while avoiding monetising through ads (because ads are lame). Some of their ideas include sponsored events (like EDC), sponsored geofilters and even a mobile payments service. If they can get this right, then Snapchat has an even brighter future than initially anticipated.

So Social. Much Viral. Wow!

Social@Ogilvy recently conducted an international study that identified a significant decrease in organic reach for brand pages on Facebook. They found that organic reach for brand pages dropped to about 6% of fans, declining by an average of 49% during the three month study. For pages with more than 500,000 likes, the effect was even worse.

Now, if you’re a brand that has invested in building a presence on Facebook or if you work in social media, producing content for Facebook, you should find the results of this study quite worrying. Facebook wants to charge you to reach your own fans, but even when you pay them for the privilege of doing so, how do you get the most bang for your buck?

The answer could be A/B testing your social media content and adapting your paid media strategy.

Let’s start by looking at how the majority of brands go about creating and posting content on Facebook. Most brands post twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. These brands generally post at “peak times” (essentially when most of the other brands are posting), which probably means that this content is less likely to show up in someone’s newsfeed. In addition to this, most of this content is produced for the sake of producing content and filling up retainer hours. It’s not an ideal setup, but it looks something like this:

An alternative would be to incorporate A/B Testing into the planning, posting and promotion of your social media content. To do this, simply create two versions of the post you want to test. You can look at changing things like the tone of the copy, the call to action, the overall design of your image or even pit two completely different messages against each other.

Share both posts with your fans – both posts will most likely only reach a small percentage of your fanbase. Give the posts an hour or two and see if one post in particular has been more successful. To get the necessary exposure, you may have to put a small bit of paid media behind each post. In most cases, success will be higher levels of engagement (more likes, comments or shares) but this will depend on your objectives for your content. If there is a clear winner, promote that post to the rest of your fanbase or to a specific group based on their interests.

This approach looks something like:

If you want to test the same message with different audiences, post the same message twice but use targeted Facebook advertising to reach different audiences based on age, gender, location or interests, and then compare the results.

Now obviously, the degree that you incorporate A/B testing into the development of your social media content will differ from brand to brand. In an extreme case, a very data-driven client may want every single post to be A/B tested but this is most likely pretty rare. More likely, most brands will usually be open to use A/B testing when:

Compare click through rates from social content on your website (this may require tracking different links on each post)

Optimising paid media spend

Eventually, you might be able to identify key trends that will allow you to target and engage different segments of your community of Facebook fans more effectively. This will allow you to ensure that the right messages are reaching the right audiences as well as make smarter use of paid media spend.

As I mentioned earlier, our job as social media people is not just to produce content for content’s sake and fill up retainer hours. If you are producing content for a client, explore and experiment with A/B testing in order make sure you are being as smart and strategic as possible when it comes to planning and creating content.

So Social. Much Viral. Wow!

Earlier this week, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion. And while everyone may have their opinion of why Facebook acquired WhatsApp, what they have planned for WhatsApp, or whether or not it was a good or a bad deal for Facebook, no one can definitively know the answer to any of these questions for sure at this moment in time.

Sure, the internet is full of people with opinions and the best way to take an opinion is with a pinch of salt. Having said that, Facebook’s decision to acquire WhatsApp for $19 billion could very well be the single worst decision in the history of business. Ever.

Here’s why:

1. 19 Billion Reasons

The great thing about WhatsApp is that it is incredibly simple and has focused on doing one thing particularly well. WhatsApp doesn’t collect your personal data and it doesn’t depend on advertising for revenue. WhatsApp is basically free for the first year and then charges you $1 a year thereafter.

So did Facebook acquire WhatsApp to collect more data? Did they acquire them to make money. The answer, at least at the moment, is ‘no’ on both accounts. In fact if every one of WhatsApp’s 450 million monthly users paid their $1 subscription, it would take WhatsApp just over 42.2 years to generate $19 billion dollars. This $19 billion would not be pure profit.

It would not be worth the same as $19 billion dollars is worth by today’s standards.

Ok, so for many, WhatsApp is the default SMS or messaging app, especially for “poorer” people in emerging markets. But is Facebook’s play really spending $19 billion dollars to get WhatsApp on “poor” people’s smartphones just so that they can get them to use Facebook? That sounds stupid.

But if Facebook acquired WhatsApp to target the next billion people who will be accessing the internet for the first time in emerging markets, they have a big problem. WeChat.

WeChat offers the same functionality as WhatsApp as well as a completely mobile social network that can potentially replace Facebook for many users. And in a recent article by Quartz, while WeChat has 150 million users less than WhatsApp, each WeChat user is worth an estimated $95 each – making WeChat worth around $30 billion.

Not only are WeChat users worth more than WhatsApp users, WeChat is looking to aggressively expand into Western markets. WhatsApp will not only have to fight off WeChat’s superior offering in these markets but they will also struggle to gain traction in China (where WeChat comes from) because of WeChat’s head start and the fact that Facebook is pretty much banned in China.

3. Facebook Fails

I think Facebook has a lot of potential as a company. They have an enormous user base, all our data, tons of money and some super smart people. But they also have a terrible track record of announcing things that should revolutionize social media but fail miserably instead. Some of these Facebook fails include:

The effect of changes to the News Feed algorithm for posts from friends

The effect of changes to the News Feed algorithm for posts by brands

@Facebook.com email addresses

Facebook Graph Search

Facebook Home (despite being a cool product)

The HTC First (this was actually quite a cool entry level phone)

Facebook Poke (to compete with Snapchat)

Facebook’s controversial IPO

Not being able to solve advertising on Instagram (although this may change)

Instagram Video (to compete with Vine)

Instagram Direct (once again to compete with Snapchat)

So even if buying WhatsApp is a good idea and fits perfectly into Facebook’s genius plans…things don’t always go according to plan. Especially for Facebook. After writing this post, I think I realise that the only possible reason Facebook bought WhatsApp wasn’t to increase revenues, get more data or even more users. The acquisition was most likely to prepare for the upcoming battle between with WeChat. Will the $19 billion dollars that Facebook spent on WhatsApp be worth it? We’ll find out as the battle unfolds on the tiny screens in our pockets.

It’s tough to say. Snapchat isn’t confirming the total number of active users.

7. Ok…so why the billion dollar offers?

There are more snaps sent each day than the number of photos loaded onto Facebook.

8. Should Facebook be worried?

Facebook shouldn’t be worried about Snapchat per se. Facebook should be worried that young people think that Facebook is boring and aren’t using it as much as they used to.

9. Is Snapchat worth billions of dollars?

Probably not. They haven’t figured out a way to make money and people are very fickle when it comes to the next hot app. Plus a lot of their metrics are very misleading at the moment.

10. Can brands use Snapchat?

Yes and no. Seriously, this is taking way longer than 10 seconds. I guess you could use Snapchat’s relatively new Story feature to create a feed of pictures and videos that live for 24 hours before deleting themself. I’m sure Snapchat is probably looking at new features specifically for brands. To be safe, just stick to Facebook and Twitter and quit trying to look smarter than you really are by trying to find “the next big thing” in social media.

So Social. Much Viral. Wow!

We’ve often heard that Africa is the next big opportunity for businesses and brands. We also heard that social and mobile are two factors that are going to shape the way that business is conducted in Africa. So with this in mind, I thought it might be worthwhile to try shed some light on how how Africa accesses Facebook, the world’s largest social network, on mobile.

It sounds like a simple question but the answer is a bit more complicated. We should all know that there are a number of social and economic factors that make each African country unique in their own right. But through data from Facebook, we may be able to shed some light on the current mobile landscape in Africa and make some predictions about how it will change in the next few years.

How Africa Accesses Facebook in Africa

If you look at Africa as a whole, there are over 77 million Facebook users with over 51 million users who access the service on mobile. It is interesting to note that the ratio of Android to Blackberry devices in Africa is over 2:1 – (although this may include Android tablets). But this only provides a broader picture, so for your convenience, I’ve broken down the data for the five largest countries in Africa, based on the number of mobile users (a full PDF of all the data for 50 African countries can be found at the bottom of the page)

1. Nigeria

How Nigeria Accesses Facebook on Mobile

87% of Nigerian Facebookers access the social network from mobile devices. 68% of these mobile users use feature phones while another 18% use BlackBerries.

2. South Africa

How South Africa Accesses Facebook on Mobile

93% of South African Facebookers access the social network from mobile devices. 47% of these mobile users access Facebook through a feature phone while another 30% use BlackBerry devices.

3. Egypt

How Egypt Accesses Facebook on Mobile

FUN FACT: Egypt has the largest number of Facebook users in Africa but only the third highest number of mobile users. 45% of Egyptians use feature phones to access Facebook with another 38% using Android devices.

4. Morocco

How Morocco Accesses Facebook on Mobile

Only 55% of Moroccan Facebookers access the social network on mobile. 39% of these users do so on feature phones while 37% of users use Android devices. It shouldn’t be long before the most popular way to access Facebook on mobile is on an Android device.

5. Kenya

How Kenya Accesses Facebook on Mobile

85% of Kenyan Facebookers access the social network on mobile. Like Nigeria, a large percentage of these users (71%) do so on feature phones. Unlike Nigeria and South Africa, the next most popular platform is Android.

Some General Observations from the Data:

Feature phones are still king

Android’s market share is gowing in a number of a of African countries

BlackBerry is still prevelant but only in a select number of markets

iOS has found a niche in a number of markets but is not widely used

Microsoft should quit now or start making Android devices

A Note on the Data:

All of the data used in this post was sourced directly from Facebook’s Advertising Tool. To the best of my knowledge, all of the above data is as accurate as possible at the time of originally publishing this post. If there is an error in the data, it may be my fault (please let me know if you find something wrong). If I was not at fault, then Facebook was drunk. You can find a full PDF of the data here. If you would like it in an editable spreadsheet, please let me know and I will gladly supply it.

I have tried my best to not be misleading with the data in this post. You are free to reuse any of the figures in this article but please do so in context – this is important to make both you and myself seem less stupid.

So Social. Much Viral. Wow!

Last week, Facebook unveiled Facebook Home, a brand new approach to mobile that is designed around people instead of apps. Facebook Home is not a “Facebook Phone”, at least not in the same way that the iPhone is an “Apple Phone”. Instead, Facebook home is a launcher – which is essentially an app capable of customising the look and feel of any Android device.

The thinking behind Facebook Home is brilliant. Through Facebook Home, Facebook is extending its reach beyond its traditional mobile app and integrating its services directly into the UI of potentially millions of Android phones around the world. All without ever having to design ship or sell a single mobile device.

Ironically, this feat is only possible on Android, a mobile operating system owned by one of Facebook’s main rivals, Google. In addition to this, Android is also the world’s most popular mobile operating system and continues to sell well in both developing and developed markets alike.

Simply brilliant.

Judging from a variety of hands-on videos, Facebook Home seems to be a highly polished product. It is beautifully designed, fun to play with and even a little whimsical. But despite everything it has going for it, Facebook Home will need to accomplish some pretty big things if it is going to be considered a successful product.

The first thing it will need to do is help make Facebook more money off of mobile. Over the past few years, Facebook have had to aggressively transform itself into a mobile first company. Over 50% of users access Facebook from mobile devices but only 23% of Facebook’s ad revenue comes from mobile ads.

Facebook Home is expected to eventually incorporate some form of advertising which may put some people off. If done correctly, these ads might even add value and make Facebook Home an even more compelling product. But until we actually see these ads, all we can do is speculate.

Another challenge Facebook needs to overcome is that, for some, Facebook is becoming less relevant. This is particularly true amongst younger users who have recently been switching to other services like Twitter, Tumblr and Snap Chat. It’s no secret that there is also a large group of people who are only on Facebook because everyone they know is on Facebook. They use the service begrudgingly and more exposure to Facebook would probably do more harm than good.

Another problem Facebook has is data. This may come as a shock as Facebook probably knows more about you than any other company in the world. As pointed out by The Verge in their early review of Graph Search, Facebook’s other new product from earlier this year, the data collected by Facebook is great for targeting ads but offers very little value for users in the real world. In order to fix this, Facebook needs to change the way we use their social network, which may be more effort than it’s worth.

But despite the challenges it has to overcome, Facebook Home is exciting. Whether it succeeds or fails, it is part of a massive shift that is taking place in mobile. In the past, mobile was all about apps. With Facebook Home, Facebook is going beyond the app. Google will no doubt try take this one step further later this year as they try go beyond the phone with Project Glass. Apple and just about every other tech company are reportedly working on smart watches and other forms of wearable computers.